Existing auto-flight systems and existing flight management systems are very complicated to operate and utilize non-intuitive interfaces. The non-intuitive nature of existing auto-flight systems and existing flight management systems often results in unintended flight mode activations and surprises. Operating existing auto-flight systems and existing flight management systems has become increasingly complicated and challenging for both new and very experienced pilots. Additionally, existing auto-flight systems and existing flight management systems require intense demands on pilots to be aware of particular flight situations and conditions while operating these complicated flight systems. Pilots' inability to consistently understand and continuously be aware of the complexities and non-intuitiveness of automation of existing avionics systems has resulted in safety concerns and accidents. Complex flight mode logic of existing auto-flight systems and existing flight management systems can make it difficult for pilots to train and understand flight modes of current systems. Also, existing systems poorly annunciate to the pilot what automated activities are being performed or are about to be performed; as such, the poor flight mode annunciation often results in flight mode automation surprise (such as overflown flight plans due to unnoticed automatic mode changes). For example, the large number of flight modes to know, the poor annunciation of the flight modes, and the pilot awareness needed in an in-flight environment often result in pilot confusion while trying to operate current flight management systems and auto-flight systems. Additionally, control of existing flight management system flight modes is often so time consuming that pilots abort automation in favor of basic auto-flight modes. Furthermore, it is currently a problem that pilots are limited to engaging an active-pilot mode or an autopilot-armed mode, whereby the pilot is constrained to engaging in either the active-pilot mode or the autopilot-armed mode in a rigid “all-or-none” manner; this limitation of current systems fails to provide pilots flexibility for specific circumstances and flight conditions.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a method, system, and apparatus configured to reduce the number of auto-flight modes, reduce training requirements, better align aviation systems with pilot goals, replace or improve traditional flight control panels, integrate mode feedback and flight management information, calculate and display optimized navigation intercepts, graphically demonstrate automation effects to a pilot, resolve pilot goal performance conflicts, and provide at least some variable or adjustable pilot control to the degree to which particular flight modes are armed.